User:Giggy/RfA review Recommend Phase

Welcome to the Recommendation phase of RfA Review. In this phase, you will be asked to offer suggestions and proposals to address specific concerns and problems with the current Requests for Adminship process.

The questions below are taken directly from the 209 responses from the Question phase, each of which offered editors' thoughts and concerns about RfA. Based on those concerns, we identified the most frequently mentioned problems and included them here. These are the elements of RfA that are currently under review.

Please take your time and read through the concerns below. For each item, you are invited to offer a proposal that addresses the concern. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. There isn't a limit on the scope of your proposals; the sky is the limit, here. The intent of this phase is to get ideas, not necessarily to write policy - recommendations that gain traction and community support will be refined during later phases.

Most importantly, Answer as few or as many questions as you wish. All responses are evaluated, so any information you provide is helpful.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to User:Ultraexactzz. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages with the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the project talk page at Wikipedia talk:RfA Review.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. We stress that editors who didn't participate in the question phase are encouraged to participate now - more responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Questions

Selection and Nomination

A1. Editors note that the RfA process can be daunting to prospective administrators, and that the process itself may discourage otherwise qualified candidates from seeking adminship. How can this "Selection Bias" be countered?

• Response: Two ways of looking at it; one, create an RfA jury or something else that results in having less voters, and thus less potential "daunting" aspects. The other way is to consider that adminship can be stressful and if they can't get through RfA, they may not be cut out for it. But that's probably not what you want as an answer, so yeah... RfA jury.

A2. Editors expressed concern over unprepared or unqualified candidates at RfA, noting that their candidacies result in NOTNOW and SNOW closures that can be discouraging. In lieu of minimum requirements for adminship, how can prospective candidates be educated about RfA and the community's expectations of its administrators?

• Response: Add more documentation. Some people say we shouldn't say "no people with less than x edits" because they're actually qualified with that number of edits. Fine. Find a number we all agree on and put a banner on WP:RFA/N that says "no people with less than y edits". If people don't read it, there isn't much more that can be done...

A3. 44 editors expressed concern over excessive co-nominations. Some of these editors advocated a limit on co-nominations, perhaps capping them at one or two per candidate; others recommended asking prospective co-nominators to post a Strong Support in lieu of an actual nomination statement. How can the concern over Co-nominations be addressed?

• Response: Prohibiting all co-nominations/limiting RfA to self-nom (which sort isn't what's being asked) would be a good idea.

The RfA Debate (Questions, Election, Canvassing)

B1. 60 editors expressed concern over the number of questions asked of candidates, and indicated that questions should be limited in number. How can this be accomplished? What limits could be fairly imposed? Are there alternative means for the candidate to provide information about themselves without the prompting of questions?

• Response: To answer the last question first; yes, they have a candidate statement and they have three optional questions. A way of filtering out crap questions could be to agree to remove questions that don't contain a diff (eg. "why did you do this?" or "considering this comment, what's your stance on this policy?").

B2. Editors expressed concern over the content of questions, with 43 editors disapproving of "Trick questions", 8 disapproving of questions that require only a quotation from policy to answer, and 54 favoring questions that relate directly to the candidate and their experiences, contributions, conflicts, etc. How should the scope of possible questions be determined? Conversely, how would the decision to remove bad-faith or problematic questions be made, and by whom? What subjects should be specifically off-limits, and why?

• Response: See the diff-only approach above. Anyone should be able to remove questions per an agreed upon criteria... 'crats can have the final say if necessary. No subject, if there's a relevant diff, should be off limit.

B3. Editors note that RfA is seen as a negative process, with issues such as badgering of opposes, personal attacks, and a general lack of civility being prominent concerns. How can the RfA process be changed to address these concerns?

• Response: RfA jury (see above) is one way. Another is to simply be more stern on those who are uncivil. We have processes that work elsewhere (warn/block), so apply them here too.

B4. The very nature of the RfA process was disputed. Some editors desire rationales with every vote, and favor a more discussion and consensus-based process similar to other processes on the English wikipedia. Other editors desire a more vote-based election, where the raw numbers of supports and opposes are the critical factor. Is there one of these methods that would provide a clearer consensus on the community's view of a candidate? Or, alternatively, is a hybrid of the two preferable, and how should that be structured?

• Response: We currently have a hybrid of the two running, no? Anyways, attempting to bring in the former suggested (pure consensus) would not work unless we gave our 'crats significantly more leeway and trust (we give them virtually none at the moment). The latter would just be asking for an RfA bot; that generally isn't seem favourably at the moment (and I tend to agree).

B5. The amount of discretion held by Bureaucrats to remove or discount problem votes was also discussed, with some editors favoring increased discretion for Bureaucrats. 25 editors also favored a detailed closing rationale from Bureaucrats, detailing the specific factors that resulted in the candidate being successful (or not successful). What changes to the RfA process or format could clarify community consensus on this issue? Should Bureaucrats take a more active role in managing (or clerking) ongoing RfAs?

• Response: The problem isn't just "problem votes" (which generally means sockpuppets, obvious lies, and Kurt). They should be given the leeway and trust to discount any vote at their discretion; per the argument strength, the strength of the rebuttal, or any other factors they're aware of. And, of course, if they did this, a closing rationale would be good (though it wouldn't have to specifically state which votes were discounted and why, just how they reached a conclusion that may have gotten a 74% promote (or a 81% fail)). Most importantly, we need to stop treating 80% as a magic line in the sand... as long as we do, 'crat discretion is meaningless.

B6. 68 editors noted that a limited form of Canvassing or advertising would be acceptable, if such canvassing was done on-site and in a neutral fashion. How could a candidate advertise the fact that he or she is a candidate for adminship, while being completely neutral in the audience to which he or she advertises?

• Response: As well as the userpage notice, they can leave messages to WikiProjects they've worked with, and users who appear on their talk page or recent archives (eg. "Hello. We recently interacted here (link to talk page archive). I'm currently requesting adminship (link). You may wish to give your opinion.")

Training and Education

C1. Though 73 editors responded favorably to the Admin Coaching programme, 39 were critical of the process for "Teaching for the test", or for being an RfA preparation programme rather than an Adminship preparation programme. In what ways could Admin Coaching be improved to focus more on adminship itself?

• Response: Get rid of it? :-) Else talk to Balloonman.

Question: I'm not sure of what you are saying here... I can think of two possibilities, and one of them is sending my henchmen over to break the legs of people who try to get rid of it... and I don't think that's what you mean?---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 05:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

C2. In evaluating New Admin School, some editors noted that a Mentorship element would be of great benefit to newly minted administrators - something that Admin Coaching provides in a direct one-on-one coach-coachee team. Similarly, 15 editors characterized Admin Coaching, a primarily pre-adminship process, as being invaluable after the RfA, which is traditionally when New Admin School is used for training. Are there areas where the two processes overlap, and can be made more complimentary? Are there common themes or elements that could be shared between the two processes, in order to improve the effectiveness of both?

• Response: I wouldn't know, as a non-admin, but I figure if we promote them for their clue, a mentorship period just seems like a bit of extra red tape/PR/whatever you want to call it that isn't really necessary.
• Response: More to the point it would be pointless, as once granted the bit all bets are off, and new admins can stomp around wherever and whenever they like, with relative impunity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Malleus Fatuorum (talk • contribs)
  • That's true. Giggy (talk) 23:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Adminship (Removal of)

D1. Editors noted that the current voluntary Admins open to Recall process is redundant to Dispute Resolution process such as Requests for Comment and Arbitration. In the absence of Recall (i.e. if it were removed altogether), how could existing processes be adapted to more effectively deal with issues of administrator abuse?

• Response: Friday's proposal (to let 'crats request removal per a community discussion) is an excellent one. Making reconfirmation RfAs binding, and getting a process for their creation set up, would also work well. Admins don't have tenure, and admins doing good work controversially will get supported for the good work they do. Woo, two urban myths busted in one sentence.

D2. Editors cited the voluntary nature of the Admins open to Recall process as problematic, and 40 went as far as to recommend a mandatory process for all administrators, either as a mandatory form of Admins open to Recall, or a more formal version of the process administered by Bureaucrats. As a separate process from WP:DR, how could the current recall process be standardized for use as a mandatory process? Who would be responsible for such a process?

• Response: If you can get the 'crats to run it on a standard criteria, then sure, go for it. I dunno if it's likely, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea.

D3. 44 editors criticized the recall process for being too open to abuse, both through spurious or bad-faith calls for an admin to be recalled, or through administrators who fail to follow through on a commitment to stand for recall. How can the recall process be amended to address these concerns?

• Response: In the case of bad faith requests, we have recall clerks (or 'crats, as proposed above) for a reason. People need to trust these guys, instead of using "zomg bad faith" as a defence against genuine requests. Which leads me onto the second point. Make ArbCom willing to desysop for breaking promises like this one.

D4. Some editors recommended that administrators be required to stand for some form of reconfirmation after a given period of time. How would such reconfirmation be structured? How long would an admin have before such reconfirmation would be required? Could such reconfirmation be triggered by an effort to recall an admin, and how would that be handled? What form would such reconfirmation take (RfA, Straw Poll, etc)?

• Response: Some admins barely use their tools, and if they do, certainly don't have issues with them. Too much process. Just set something up so we can get rid of the bad ones instead.

Overall Process

E1. The earliest version of the RfA policy states that adminship is granted to "anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community." Current policy leaves the definition of a "trusted editor" to the community. Editors offered a wide range of basic characteristics desirable of administrators, including Trustworthiness, competence, and communication skills. How could the RfA process be amended to either A) more fully ensure that editors selected as admins do indeed have the full trust of the community, or B) more fully fit the community's expectations for administrators?

• Response: A) randomised RfA jury. B) Define the community's expectations and get a cookie (hint; randomised RfA jury).

E2. Editors expressed concern over the format of the Requests for Adminship process. Some suggested that RfA has become a form of high-impact editor review, while others expressed concern over the view of Adminship itself as a goal or "trophy" that all editors should attain after a certain period of time. In taking the RfA process as a whole, what elements work well? What elements should be removed or amended?

• Response: Meh. If it's not answered above, feel free to ask me to expand on it. I'm not really sure what to touch on here.

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process.

Your responses will be added to Category:Wikipedian Recommendations to RfA Review, which will be used to review the responses after this phase is concluded.

Footnote

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 22:22 on 22 September 2008.